Handbook on Ontologies (International Handbooks on Information Systems) - Tapa dura

From the reviews:

"General impression is that the Handbook on Ontologies in Information Systems provides a comprehensive overview of the current status and future prospectives of the field of ontologies. The handbook demonstrates standards that have been created recently, it surveys methods that have been developed and it shows how to bring both into practice of ontology infrastructure and applications that are the best of their kind. ... With its coverage of research and applications it provides valuable insights, both for researchers and practitioners." (Jaroslav Veselý, Neural Network World, Issue 1, 2005)

"The handbook is formed as a collection of papers written by many authors. These papers are collected into chapters devoted to separate problems of ontologies. ... This book presents an interesting collection of information about all aspects of ontology processing and applications and also references to other information sources from this field." (Tomas Brandejsky, Neural Network World, Vol. 14 (6), 2004)

An ontology is a formal description of concepts and relationships that can exist for a community of human and/or machine agents. The notion of ontologies is crucial for the purpose of enabling knowledge sharing and reuse. The Handbook on Ontologies provides a comprehensive overview of the current status and future prospectives of the field of ontologies considering ontology languages, ontology engineering methods, example ontologies, infrastructures and technologies for ontologies, and how to bring this all into ontology-based infrastructures and applications that are among the best of their kind. The field of ontologies has tremendously developed and grown in the five years since the first edition of the "Handbook on Ontologies". Therefore, its revision includes 21 completely new chapters as well as a major re-working of 15 chapters transferred to this second edition.